NYT: Yeah, ObamaCare has made the healthcare system a mess in 2014

posted at 9:31 am on January 12, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

The Associated Press first reported this developing and completely predictable problemearlier in the week. What happens when you pass a law that (a) causes the health-insurance cancellation for millions and then (b) forces them and millions more to use a disastrously-built web portal as a middeman to replace that coverage? Answer: You end up with millions of people flooding into providers without any idea whether they have coverage or whether their doctor will accept it.

In addition to the difficulties many face in proving they have coverage, patients are also having a hard time figuring out whether particular doctors are affiliated with their health insurance plan. Doctors themselves often do not know if they are in the network of providers for plans sold on the exchange.

But interviews with doctors, hospital executives, pharmacists and newly insured people around the country suggest that the biggest challenge so far has been verifying coverage. A surge of enrollments in late December, just before the deadline for coverage to take effect, created backlogs at many state and federal exchanges and insurance companies in processing applications. As a result, many of those who enrolled have yet to receive an insurance card, policy number or bill.

Many are also having trouble reaching exchanges and insurance companies to confirm their enrollment or pay their first month’s premium. Doctors’ offices and pharmacies, too, are spending hours on the phone trying to verify patients’ coverage, sometimes to no avail.

“The system wasn’t really built to handle this kind of glut of new patients,” said Dr. Curtis Miyamoto, a radiation oncologist at Temple University Hospital who is president of the Philadelphia County Medical Society. “So it’s resulting in us having some delays in getting people verified, and therefore delays in their care.”

That’s leading to decisions like this being forced on the once-insured:

In Langley, Wash., north of Seattle, Erin Waterman was able to see a primary care doctor on Jan. 3 with a temporary identification card printed from the website of her new insurer, LifeWise Health Plan of Washington. But when Ms. Waterman, 47, tried to fill a prescription for a new asthma inhaler, the pharmacy could not verify her coverage even though she had paid her first month’s premium on Dec. 23.

Ms. Waterman was given the option of paying full price — $187, instead of the $50 co-payment required under her new plan — and eventually being reimbursed. But she decided to wait, and hope that she does not have an asthma attack in the meantime.

By the way, asthma attacks can kill. In 2010, asthma attacks killed over 3400 Americans, according to the CDC.

Be sure to read it all. This issue extends well beyond whether an enrollment has been successfully concluded. As mentioned above, providers themselves aren’t even sure whether they’re in network on which plans, which means that their ability to get reimbursement is under question on every patient that comes through on anything other than a group plan. And even if they know that, providers aren’t sure which procedures and treatments will be covered, thanks to a massive amount of confusion over the mandates in ObamaCare.

This, of course, is just the appetizer. When the employer mandate hits this fall, it will similarly scramble the coverage of tens of millions of Americans who end up in the ObamaCare exchanges when their employers simply decide to opt out of subsidizing the rapidly-escalating premiums in health insurance, and we’ll get a crisis orders of magnitude larger one year from now.

“The Affordable Care Act was supposed to be fully operational by January 1 of this year, but here we are two weeks into 2014, and the administration continues to struggle to implement the law’s burdensome mandates,” Cochran said in theweekly Republican address. “The law is not living up to the promises made by its supporters, and it is questionable whether the law will meet its fundamental purpose – to significantly expand health insurance coverage.”

The administration and congressional Democrats have recently been touting the law’s expansion of coverage to roughly nine million Americans – three million young adults who have been able to stay on their parents’ plan, two million consumers who have enrolled in the private insurance exchanges and four million low-income consumers who have been inducted into an expanded Medicaid program.

Cochran, however, argued there may be less to those figures than meets the eye.

“The administration’s enrollment numbers don’t paint a pretty picture,” he said. “They don’t tell us how many of the enrollees have actually lost existing coverage and were forced into the exchanges; and the numbers don’t tell us whether applicants have actually paid their premiums and received coverage. There is ample reason to be skeptical that those numbers will improve substantially.”

Cochran’s other complaints about the law had a familiar ring: that it’s booting people off of health plans they liked despite the president’s promise that people could keep their current insurance; that it’s forcing people to change doctors; that many consumers are finding their prices going up under Obamacare.

“If the law can’t keep its most basic promise, it should be repealed,” he concluded. “We should go back to the drawing board and draft commonsense, bipartisan legislation that will work better for all Americans, without spending billions of taxpayer dollars to support these failing policies.”

Let’s hope we don’t have to make this New Year’s resolution again for 2015.

Out of over a hundred physicians who “tweet” that I know of, there are ONLY two who are promoters of Obamacare (“ACA”) and one of those reads suspiciously like a hired-hand of the awful plan.

Out of family and friends all.over.this.nation, NOT ONE of them feels any differently than I do about Obamacare and as most of those who comment here on this site express themselves. No one supports it, EVERYONE I speak with has the same response of loathing and uncanny disbelief at the dysfunction and intrusions involved. Not to mention “cannot stand” (their words, all of them, individually) Obama himself.

And, there’s a physician who tweets who has actually READ printed material from Obamacare and has posted, with tweets, photos of the pages and highlighted contents of contention.

It’s mind-blowing how hideous Obamacare (“ACA”) is in writing, and how outrageously creepy, intrusive, downright fascist the terms of the legislation are. And this physician I’m referring to has highlighted, with her remarks, some of the contents…

I’ll find her twitter ID in a moment and return with it so everyone can read her remarks and see the actual legislative passages she’s discovered.

Here’s the information — everyone interested/concerned who has some time should read through this physician’s tweets, find those she posted one/two days ago with photos of the ACA/Obamacare legislation…

No president has ever launched anything even remotely close to a disaster program like this before, that I’m aware of. An honorable president, one with character and compassion, would take a step back and take a good hard look at what’s happened and admit to the American people that they have failed and ask for our forgiveness. Then they would abolish the program and like Cochran said, “We should go back to the drawing board and draft commonsense, bipartisan legislation that will work better for all Americans…”
But we don’t have an honorable president of character and compassion, we have an arrogant jacka$$ in the office.

I believe its far worse then we know. I would wager the “2 million” enrollees is likely a couple hundred thousand and that the networks simply don’t exist. Its going to go from bad to worse.

Ditto. In addition, I see statements like this one of Ed’s frequently:

When the employer mandate hits this fall, it will similarly scramble the coverage of tens of millions of Americans who end up in the ObamaCare exchanges when their employers simply decide to opt out of subsidizing the rapidly-escalating premiums in health insurance, and we’ll get a crisis orders of magnitude larger one year from now.

But given O’s propensity to give waivers or ignore any law or regulation that proves politically inconvenient, I don’t see how he lets further Obamascare disasters unfold, particularly since it’s an election year. I don’t know how Zero will try to avoid the mess, but I can’t see him sitting back and doing nothing. And him doing *something* is never a good thing.

ObamaCare is the epitome of liberal thinking. Having a vision of something that in the past people worked hard to earn or buy (health insurance in this case), and making it universal. And they are completely blind to the reality of its implementation. All they see is their wonderful, caring, helpful vision. I’m reminded of the social engineering of Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin. Pol Pot really thought he was doing something good for his country.

Yeah but Ed you don’t understand. People were stuck in traffic. Far more important than people losing their health care.

bsinc1962 on January 12, 2014 at 9:43 AM

Not just people. New Yorkers and New Jerseyites. They think their lives are far more important than the rest of the world. Had the traffic jams occurred in Minneapolis or Houston, we wouldn’t have heard a word.

Despite the problems, Mr. Donahue, 58, a retired software engineer, is delighted with his new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. The monthly premium for him and his wife is $1,062, but the federal government pays a subsidy of $903. The couple pay the remainder, $159 a month.

“It’s a superb deal,” Mr. Donahue said.

It’s a “superb deal” because I’m paying that $903 subsidy, dimwit. A “subsidy” is nothing more than the government robbing Peter to pay Paul.

With that in mind, Sen. Thad Cochran called for a New Year resolution to repeal ObamaCare in the GOP’s weekly address to the nation yesterday

Yeah whatever. The GOP ruling class wants this crap just s much as their commie brothers in the democrat party. Otherwise the government would either still be shut down while trying to force a repeal or the damn thing would have already been repealed. Enough talk and BS. Fix it or let the rebellion begin.

But given O’s propensity to give waivers or ignore any law or regulation that proves politically inconvenient, I don’t see how he lets further Obamascare disasters unfold, particularly since it’s an election year. I don’t know how Zero will try to avoid the mess, but I can’t see him sitting back and doing nothing. And him doing *something* is never a good thing.

Mayday on January 12, 2014 at 9:54 AM

Simple, the more disasters that unfold, the quicker they get to single payer full government control. This isn’t rocket science in that it’s not hard to understand what they are doing. And that goes for both the democrats and the republicans. They both want it. The republicans just have to act like they oppose single payer to keep the façade going.

Despite the problems, Mr. Donahue, 58, a retired software engineer, is delighted with his new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. The monthly premium for him and his wife is $1,062, but the federal government pays a subsidy of $903. The couple pay the remainder, $159 a month.

Despite the problems, Mr. Donahue, 58, a retired software engineer, is delighted with his new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. The monthly premium for him and his wife is $1,062, but the federal government pays a subsidy of $903. The couple pay the remainder, $159 a month.

“It’s a superb deal,” Mr. Donahue said.

I am sure he is consistent with “corporate welfare”.

CWchangedhisNicagain on January 12, 2014 at 10:32 AM

A relative of mine who is near retirement (married, in great health, female, still working) is now required by Obamacare to pay $400 MORE A MONTH for her medical insurance.

People such as “Mr. Donahue” above, bragging about his largesse at other people’s expense, is not in touch with reality. He’s enjoying his great find, so he describes it, without regard for the fact that every dollar “the government pays” for his and wife’s insurance is being taken from someone else, it’s someone else’s money he’s using.

By the way, asthma attacks can kill. In 2010, asthma attacks killed over 3400 Americans, according to the CDC.

Asthma is just the beginning. The magnitude of this deadly debacle has yet to be revealed, even though it should be blindingly apparent to anyone who can look beyond tomorrow.

I’ve said it before. Millions of policies have been cancelled. Thousands of people who lost policies have not been able to replace them, and some of those have life-threatening conditions whose lives literally depend on receiving regular treatments.

Obamacare is going to kill people. Not just a few people, but hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Some of these people will die slow and agonizing deaths as their untreated illnesses and conditions gradually grind them down without treatment. (And that is not to mention those who will not die, but merely suffer as the treatments that made life bearable are no longer available.)

It is only a matter of time.

Every single idiot who voted for Obama (or didn’t vote) will have this blood and suffering on their hands. None will accept their responsibility.

Simple, the more disasters that unfold, the quicker they get to single payer full government control.

Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I don’t think disaster after disaster hitting a large majority of the country – in their wallets and in the actual care of their health – will make people conclude they should just turn everything over to the government, especially this inept administration. That’s just a liberal fantasy.

Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I don’t think disaster after disaster hitting a large majority of the country – in their wallets and in the actual care of their health – will make people conclude they should just turn everything over to the government, especially this inept administration. That’s just a liberal fantasy.

Mayday on January 12, 2014 at 10:58 AM

Then you haven’t been paying attention the last few years. Single payer will be touted as the only thing left to do. The media will push it 24/7. Polls will be rigged to show increasing support for it as health care gets worse. It’s the same playbook over and over again to push more marxism/socialism on the public.

People such as “Mr. Donahue” above, bragging about his largesse at other people’s expense, is not in touch with reality. He’s enjoying his great find, so he describes it, without regard for the fact that every dollar “the government pays” for his and wife’s insurance is being taken from someone else, it’s someone else’s money he’s using.

Lourdes on January 12, 2014 at 10:49 AM

Wonder what Donahue would say to this question:

What makes Lourdes’ relatives indebted or obligated to pay your bills? What did they ever do? They owe to support you by simply existing in this country?

Despite the problems, Mr. Donahue, 58, a retired software engineer, is delighted with his new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. The monthly premium for him and his wife is $1,062, but the federal government pays a subsidy of $903. The couple pay the remainder, $159 a month.

“It’s a superb deal,” Mr. Donahue said.

It’s a “superb deal” because I’m paying that $903 subsidy, dimwit. A “subsidy” is nothing more than the government robbing Peter to pay Paul.

HotAirian on January 12, 2014 at 10:20 AM

EXACTLY.

Now I’ve got $1000 a month a premiums now (instead of 400) and a $7500 deductible, that’s $19,500 out of pocket per year pal, and I’m 3 years younger (55)than this yutz, trying like hell to stay alive in the frigging real estate business. I’m paying for a retired software engineers subsidy AND graduate students birth control (at $50,000 a year Ivy League schools)and god knows how many illegals.

Now I’ve got $1000 a month a premiums now (instead of 400) and a $7500 deductible, that’s $19,500 out of pocket per year pal, and I’m 3 years younger (55)than this yutz, trying like hell to stay alive in the frigging real estate business. I’m paying for a retired software engineers subsidy AND graduate students birth control (at $50,000 a year Ivy League schools)and god knows how many illegals.

This colossal clusterfark hits NO ONE BUT the middle class.

Tim Zank on January 12, 2014 at 11:16 AM

Such shocking ingratitude! You should be happy that you’re able to do your part for social justice, comrade.

People such as “Mr. Donahue” above, bragging about his largesse at other people’s expense, is not in touch with reality. He’s enjoying his great find, so he describes it, without regard for the fact that every dollar “the government pays” for his and wife’s insurance is being taken from someone else, it’s someone else’s money he’s using.

If this is ever appealed, how do you put the genie back in the bottle? The entire industry has been so disrupted, is it possible to go back? What do the insurance companies do with their new beneficiaries that they never would have insured prior to Obamacare or what happens to people who had their insurance cancelled. I don’t know that we can ever go back.

The middle class is racist and so who cares what happens to them. They shouldn’t have what they have anyway because that makes income inequality, so let’s let Uncle Sam take it and give it to folks who aren’t such racists.

This, of course, is just the appetizer. When the employer mandate hits this fall, it will similarly scramble the coverage of tens of millions of Americans who end up in the ObamaCare exchanges when their employers simply decide to opt out of subsidizing the rapidly-escalating premiums in health insurance, and we’ll get a crisis orders of magnitude larger one year from now.

Ed, please wake up.

The longer you guys persist in this delusion, the later it will be when everyone finds out that the Republicans have *nothing* but a pissed off base in their pocket come election time.

Obama will waive, subsidize, and further do whatever it takes to ENSURE that the world is NOT cratering around the Democrats in November.

I’m not going to “be sure to read it all” of a NYT article. They can go sit on a tack. They and everyone else who forced this abomination on us.

Not a peep out of all the leftists I know online about this total fiasco. Yet I was a killer and racist and all kinds of horrible things for opposing Obamacare. Now that it’s ruined health care – like I knew it would – not a peep.

I think they are all waiting for Hillary to turn it into single payer, and they don’t want to rock the boat. My enmity for them all is deep and will likely be life-long.

Truth is, even my real-life friendships with so-called liberals are difficult for me now. I have to try to remember they’re just stupid. But it’s the arrogance and condescension on TOP of the stupidity that galls me. I’m still friends, but I won’t allow their casual put-down of others who don’t agree with their politics in front of me anymore. I just won’t have it, and they are learning that. They don’t get to wreck things and THEN be rude and snotty on top of it.

it will similarly scramble the coverage of tens of millions of Americans who end up in the ObamaCare exchanges when their employers simply decide to opt out of subsidizing the rapidly-escalating premiums in health insurance, and we’ll get a crisis orders of magnitude larger one year from now.

Feature, not bug.

obama is a fascist socialist, who loves his muzzie brothers the world over.

DO NOT Comply!!!

I will not comply because I am a free citizen of the United States, not a subject of its government. I consider non-compliance with this monstrosity and the tens of thousands of pages of regulations that are to be enforced by an unelected bureaucracy, and that have left a gigantic carbon footprint on our environment and the United States Constitution, a duty.

They will never get rid of this law while the Republicans have a lack of leadership in Washington D.C. Boehner has had 2 years to do this and failed. He seems to believe that voting for repeal is the same as repeal. If they really believe running on repeal is going to work again, they really are naive. It’s really time to get some serious Republicans in there because the beltway has made Republicans, who may have been conservative at one time, whimps cowered by Pravda and Izvestia, afraid to do the right thing because they might not have someone vote for them. Trust me, Republicans, do the right thing and people will gladly vote for you, rather than holding their nose and voting for you.

With that in mind, Sen. Thad Cochran called for a New Year resolution to repeal ObamaCare in the GOP’s weekly address to the nation yesterday,

What does this guy think the GOP’s New Year’s TASK was in 2011?

The Vichy GOP needs to finish itself off QUICKLY. It is nothing but the useless idiot arm of the Indonesian and his useful idiot dem junta. The Weeping Boner needs to be removed from the Weepership, tossed out of Congress, deported from the nation, and blasted into space.

Despite the problems, Mr. Donahue, 58, a retired software engineer, is delighted with his new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. The monthly premium for him and his wife is $1,062, but the federal government pays a subsidy of $903. The couple pay the remainder, $159 a month.

“It’s a superb deal,” Mr. Donahue said.

It’s a “superb deal” because I’m paying that $903 subsidy, dimwit. A “subsidy” is nothing more than the government robbing Peter to pay Paul.

HotAirian on January 12, 2014 at 10:20 AM

Patience. See what Mr. Donahue says when he has to pay his deductibles.

Despite the problems, Mr. Donahue, 58, a retired software engineer, is delighted with his new coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas.

How nice he was able to retire at 58.

whbates on January 12, 2014 at 11:03 AM

If he has enough money to retire at 58, why are we paying his health care. Be a real engineer and a real man and get to work buddy!

KW64 on January 12, 2014 at 6:58 PM

I am 55 and in Tx and here is how you do it—save $$$ in accessible savings (non-IRA) and live off that. Go apply at fed exch like I did and because I listed 0 income which is true, I was directed to contact Medicaid officials. But no, I did not go Medicaid route opting for Samaritan Ministries instead.

Let’s hope we don’t have to make this New Year’s resolution again for 2015.

It is a shame what the GOP and those who make their money promoting fear within the GOP base has turned into. They continue promoting repeal every year knowing it will never happen. Way to continue raising money from the ignorant I guess.

I guess you have to ask yourself if there is ANY system he hasn’t made a mess of.

Smartest guy in the room. He needs to wear his pajamas, drink hot chocolate, and talk about stuff. Talk. That’s what we need. Not discipline, accountability, hard work, and innovation. Talk. We need more talk. It’s what built this country.

It is a shame what the GOP and those who make their money promoting fear within the GOP base has turned into. They continue promoting repeal every year knowing it will never happen. Way to continue raising money from the ignorant I guess.

What would happen if all the insurance companies and businesses just said, “Nope, we are not going to implement Obamacare and we are going to stay with what we have. It’s not perfect, but it is the best we have and it is alot better than socialized medicine.”?

Hey, I love Obamacare, after all it is the greatest educational tool ever given to America, and to think it was given to America by the Democrats! Only when someone dies at a corner, does a stop light go in, while another death brings a traffic light. When tens of thousands die because of this law, with relatives seeing this clearly, then Obamacare will die too. The Democratic Party will shift right just to stay relevant. After this Obamacare death then many social or government programs will follow. What a great lesson. This to occur much sooner than one will believes because elections have consequences. Americans, no matter what you think, don’t eat eat dog food.

But given O’s propensity to give waivers or ignore any law or regulation that proves politically inconvenient, I don’t see how he lets further Obamascare disasters unfold, particularly since it’s an election year. I don’t know how Zero will try to avoid the mess, but I can’t see him sitting back and doing nothing. And him doing *something* is never a good thing.

Mayday on January 12, 2014 at 9:54 AM

However, HE is not up for reelection, so I don’t know that he will feel like intervening for them. Why go to all that work when there’s a golf course calling…

Perhaps more importantly, he is noting that while your scenerio makes perfect sense to all of us, experience shows that many are not paying attention and will be susceptible to all of the lies. Just like they were when they believe what the dems and Obama sold on the ACA.

It is a shame what the GOP and those who make their money promoting fear within the GOP base has turned into. They continue promoting repeal every year knowing it will never happen. Way to continue raising money from the ignorant I guess.

loveofcountry on January 12, 2014 at 9:37 PM

BTW, I don’t care about repeal. I want it enforced.

Your team refuses to do that, and you continue cheering them on.

You (not a general “you”, but you specifically, loveofcountry) are openly supporting the destruction of the rule of law and where those actions have to eventually take us.

The country really is lost. We are outnumbered. The People didn’t just blunder in 2008. It wasn’t the result of the People panicking because the economy was in a tailspin and McCain was so incredibly awful. They really are that stupid. Socialism stupid.

And you can’t fix stupid.

But it is not in my nature to surrender to despair. I like Ron Unz’s idea about a $12/hr minimum wage. It’s just crazy enough, and doable enough, it might upset the chess board and reset the game.

Now I’ve got $1000 a month a premiums now (instead of 400) and a $7500 deductible, that’s $19,500 out of pocket per year pal, and I’m 3 years younger (55)than this yutz, trying like hell to stay alive in the frigging real estate business. I’m paying for a retired software engineers subsidy AND graduate students birth control (at $50,000 a year Ivy League schools)and god knows how many illegals.

This colossal clusterfark hits NO ONE BUT the middle class.

Tim Zank on January 12, 2014 at 11:16 AM

The progs’ wealth redistribution is AIMED at the middle class, because that’s where the money is.

The useful idiots that vote for democratics think that it means the EVIL RICH will pay for everything, but there’s not enough money there. Wealth redistribution and in fact socialist revolution is always targeted at the middle class.

I am 55 and in Tx and here is how you do it—save $$$ in accessible savings (non-IRA) and live off that. Go apply at fed exch like I did and because I listed 0 income which is true, I was directed to contact Medicaid officials. But no, I did not go Medicaid route opting for Samaritan Ministries instead.

hillsoftx on January 12, 2014 at 8:20 PM

I was wondering about people that are able to live off of post-tax cash.

Hate to remind all you naysayers but Obama has a lock on any general election, as NONE of his freeloaders, who are in fact a majority, will ever vote for anything or anybody standing in way of their freebies, or “subsidies”.

Hate to remind all you naysayers but Obama has a lock on any general election, as NONE of his freeloaders, who are in fact a majority, will ever vote for anything or anybody standing in way of their freebies, or “subsidies”.

rpupton on January 13, 2014 at 1:46 PM

Which is why we need to reset the board by passing a $12/hr minimum wage.

Sure, it will hurt many people at the bottom, the ones whose labor cannot be made to be worth $12, but those are almost all untouchable Democrat voters anyway and many of those getting raised to $12 will be getting pulled away from the government teat.

They will become ineligible (or at least less eligible) for government goodies at the same time they’ll begin paying income tax.